


Hounds of Hell

by GreenOnyx



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Genre: AU, F/F, Listen man shut up I know, Paris in the spring time, Romance and also tragedy, They’re not related here, Uses the more disturbing comic version of edward, Zelda kills Hilda again, but as I said, greendale in the fall, lesbian activity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2019-09-30 08:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17220158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenOnyx/pseuds/GreenOnyx
Summary: AU: Zelda And Hilda are not related. They are, however, cursed.





	1. Chapter 1

•Paris 1926•

Zelda sat at her kitchen table and opened the mail. She sipped her coffee and read in silence until she felt a hand on her shoulder and a soft kiss on her cheek.  
“Good morning my darling“ The woman said to her.  
“Good morning“  
The woman walked over to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. She sat down opposite Zelda and asked  
“anything interesting?“  
“Just a letter from my brother“  
“Oh? And what does he have to say for himself?”  
“It seems he’s been made High Priest of the Church of Night”  
“Dear me. That certainly sounds important.”  
Zelda folded up the letter and tossed it aside. She looked across the table at the person she loved most in the world, loved more than her own delicious life, and things seemed to fall back into place.  
“Hildegard Anthony. I do believe today is your birthday. That’s what’s really important.”  
Hilda smiled and shrank into herself ever so slightly. Her deep shyness was was unendingly endearing to Zelda.

She had met Hilda in London in 1838, when Hilda was stripping all her clothes off and singing God Save The Queen at the top of her lungs on the bank of the river Thames. They’d been blind drunk and ended up celebrating the coronation together, dancing naked under the moonlight in the damp, chilly English summer air. Far too drunk to care. Zelda was smitten immediately. She and Hilda had rarely been separate in the 88 years since. They’d made it a bit of a tradition, about every fifth anniversary they made sure to get very drunk and fuck on a riverbank. Under the light of a full moon if it was available.

Edward’s letter had made Zelda worry. He had urged her to return to the church of night, to serve the dark lord alongside him. Those were his words “alongside him”. What he really wanted was what he always wanted; someone to take care of him and clean up his messes. Edward was a spoiled little brat, just like their doting parents had raised him to be. Zelda had left the Spellman house at her first opportunity. She had run away to Europe. Doing the Grand Tour was all the rage in those days. She, however, never did make the Grand tour. She got held up in London by a beautiful English witch with eyes like starlight.

•Greendale 1983•

“Hilda, honestly. Either turn on the radio or be silent. You cannot make me put up with more humming, it’s inhumane. And it’s a stupid song.”  
“Sorry. There are other rooms in the house, you know.”  
“I like the kitchen”  
“Well. Zelda. I’m cooking, you’re reading. One of us needs to be in the kitchen and that one of us not you.”

Zelda slammed her newspaper down.  
“Just. Be. Quiet. Is that SO much to ask of you? Are you truly so incompetent that you can’t be asked to just. Shut. Up.”

Hilda’s eyes shon with tears and her lip began to quiver. She stopped humming, but her chopping became percussive. Every fall of the knife seemed louder than the last. Zelda felt as if her nerves were fraying and sending bolts of undiluted rage into her brain. She realized she could just do it, she could just kill her. She stood up, walked calmly to her sister, picked up a paring knife and drug it across her throat. It felt blissful finally, finally getting to kill her. As Hilda sputtered and bled to death on the floor at Zelda’s feet, Zelda felt her muscles un-tensing. She began to feel like a fog was suddenly lifting.

The unhappy haze she lived her life in was clearing around her. What she didn’t expect was for it to be making room for the horror of what she’d done. Realization dawned on her as if she’d simply forgotten and was now being reminded: She didn’t have a sister. It had always been just her and Edward. Zelda looked down at the dying woman on her kitchen floor and fragmented memories began to spill back into her mind. Disjointed and loud and beautiful.

As Hilda’s heart finally gave out and she lay dead in a pool of her own blood the memories in Zelda’s mind snapped themselves into place like puzzle pieces. London. The river. Paris. The war. They’d come to America to escape the bombing. Zelda screamed. She heard herself doing it before she had gathered that she wanted to. She covered her mouth and and dropped to her knees and picked up Hilda and kissed her face and stupidly, uselessly, begged her to wake up. “No, no, Hilda no” she sobbed “I remember now. I remember. This isn’t who we are, this is wrong! This is all him! Hilda. Please!” As if any amount of begging could undo what she’d done.

  
She held her close and rocked her lifeless body and told her she loved her again and again. She wished upon wish for a way to bring her back but her mind felt so overwhelmed, she couldn’t focus on anything. She had a flash of memory, the kind that if you’re very desperate and very lucky, you will sometimes be granted in your hour of need. The Cain pit. Edward said it was a myth. That life and death couldn’t be toyed with so easily. But then why did no one ever bury anything in it? They ran a mortuary for Satan’s sake. They needed the plot. She had to try. She stood and looked at the body on the floor. She panicked. She couldn’t lift a body on her own. She had to fix this before Edward came home. He could never know. He could never know she’d broken the spell-if she’d broken the spell. She didn’t know. But she couldn’t leave her. This was Zelda’s fault in every way. Hilda shouldn’t even be here. Zelda should have protected her. She drug Hilda out by her legs, pulling with all her strength and babbling to her like a loon. Talking to a dead woman, promising her it would all be alright.

Zelda dug the grave. She didn’t know how deep it needed to be so she guessed and she hoped and she dared not pray. She rolled Hilda into the pit and covered her with earth. When the work was done her body finally let itself give out and she stumbled backward onto the ground. She was covered in dirt and blood. She lay for thirteen minutes on the ground, wondering how long she’d be made to suffer. Wondering if it might be over now. If Hilda really was dead at least she would be free. She knew the Dark Lord wanted her to burn, but the so called “false god” wouldn’t allow it. She’d heard his philosophy on admission into heaven and hell. Hilda was surely bound for heaven. No kinder person ever drew breath. She started to wonder if maybe she should leave her, maybe she shouldn’t bring her back. Maybe she was just being selfish. But at thirteen minutes exactly, the fog dropped again.

Zelda had no idea why she was outside. She remembered killing Hilda, she remembered how freeing it felt. But she  had no memory of apparently puddle jumping in her blood. The ground began to stir. She heard choked noises and shifting dirt. She supposed the Cain pit must really work after all. That was convenient because someone did need to finish cooking supper before Edward got home. Zelda went inside to run herself a bath.


	2. Chapter 2

•London 1838•

Hilda awoke at about midday, foggy-headed and a bit spinny. Once she got her eyes to focus, she got a proper look at the woman sleeping on her stomach. Gosh. She really was that pretty.  
One of the many benefits of being a witch was that her hangover did not need to last. And the only possible drawback of having a pretty girl sleeping on top of her was that she might find herself hungover underneath her and have to choose whether to disturb her sleep or to continue suffering. Hilda’s head was beginning to throb. She had to wake the girl. Whose name was... going to come back to her. Definitely. 

She did her best to scooch gently out from under the gorgeous American girl-“Zelda” she accidentally said out loud as she remembered her name. Zelda woke up, all smiles, and stretched on top of Hilda who had now stopped trying to wiggle free. Zelda smiled at her with the same stunning flirtatious smile Hilda remembered from last night. Then she took Hilda’s face in her hands and kissed her.  
“Good morning. Shall we have breakfast?”  
“Of course” Hilda smiled “just as soon as I get rid of this hangover. I am in ribbons.”  
Zelda looked puzzled.  
“I thought those were only for mortals”  
“Well yes, but you do have to drink the potion. Or don’t you? You seem fine.”  
“All part of the deal, I suppose”  
It was Hilda’s turn to look puzzled  
“With the dark lord?” Zelda continued “we sign his book and he cures what ails us. Even if we haven’t done it to ourselves yet.”  
“Well that sounds very handy” Hilda admitted as she sat up “I must make a deal with him some day. Until then, i’ll take my coven-less self to the kitchen and have a potion” 

“Wait just a second” Zelda said as she sat up and straddled Hilda’s lap. She pressed her fingertips lightly to Hilda’s temples and Hilda felt her hangover melt away. Zelda also did a quick spell to clean both of them up from their riverbank adventures the night before and summoned a glass of water for Hilda. Hilda stared at her in wonder  
“You are amazing” she said simply. Zelda shrugged smugly and said  
“Drink your water”  
When Hilda was adequately rehydrated Zelda vanished the glass and pushed her back into the mattress. She was a ferocious kisser. Hungry. Greedy. And Hilda was very willing to be devoured. They spent the whole day in bed, fucking and talking and kissing and snuggling. 

They talked for hours about what is was like for Zelda, growing up in a coven of other witches, then what it had been like for Hilda, having only her family. Hilda was fascinated by the idea of the dark baptism, but she didn’t like the idea of this bright, lovely person having signed her rights away to a possessive, patriarchal ‘dark lord’.  
“Well yes, but he never uses any of it. All he ever really asks for is our love and devotion. And I love and am devoted to him. In my own way. Which is very much part of it if you read the scriptures that way. My way of living for the dark lord is living for me.”  
“But you’re not allowed to give your heart to anyone but him?” Hilda asked, looking at her fingers intertwined with Zelda’s.  
“Well... the rules are a little... hazy... on that front”  
Zelda brought their hands up to her mouth and placed a small kiss on each one of Hilda’s knuckles. Hilda had never felt so connected to anyone before. She knew this woman would make her happy forever.

•Greendale 1962• 

Hilda was very disheartened to find that again, she hadn’t died in the night. She’d been miserable for as long as she could remember. Why had she ever come back from England? Why couldn’t she just go and stay gone? This place never felt like home. So why did she insist on staying? 

But she rolls over and sees Zelda, still sleeping.  
Her heart warms and she feels an unnameable tenderness and longing. Her mind can’t call up a time when Zelda was anything other than cold. But her heart remembers with absolute clarity that Zelda’s heart is its home. It makes every biting comment, every affirmation of Hilda’s insecurities all the more miserable. This was the only time Hilda came close to feeling happy; when She could watch Zelda sleep, and pretend she would never wake up.


	3. Chapter 3

•Greendale 1941•

She looked so out of place here. Hilda Anthony, bon vivant and self taught witch extraordinaire, internationally desired lover, Zelda’s beloved and her idol. Zelda couldn’t quite reconcile the image of her and the image of here. This place. This bleak backward little town. Still. At least this town wasn’t being bombed. 

They’d been coming home after being out at the cinema one night in London when the air raid sirens went off. They hid in the tube with everyone else. There was an overwhelmed young mother with three screaming children and a man yelling at her to shut them up. Zelda and Hilda had stepped in at exactly the same time. Hilda appeared to put her hand on the man’s chest to calm him. Zelda knew she’d really hit him with a stunning spell. He stumbled backward into the curved wall and slid down. If anyone else noticed they didn’t say anything. Zelda was squatting so she could be eye level with the smallest and most distressed child. She was asking her her name and whether she liked flowers. Zelda had reached into her bag and conjured a beautiful pink and yellow speckled rose. Hilda hugged the mother to her and stroked her arm. A trick Zelda knew well. Hilda didn’t even have to try to emanate calming magic. It happened naturally. Zelda loved children. She was reminded of just how much as she sat playing with the children in the tunnel. When they’d heard the all-clear and gotten out of the tunnel she and Hilda held each other close on the walk home. That was the night they discovered they didn’t have a home anymore. Most of the block was gone with it.

Now, in her childhood home, she suddenly felt broody. She wondered if she and Hilda might one day have a child. Ridiculous as it was she couldn’t help imagining a little girl with golden hair and Hilda’s nose. They were in bed still. Hilda was reading the Greendale newspapers and marveling “Absolutely nothing happens here”  
That made Zelda laugh. Hilda continued “I mean really. I’ve read through a week’s worth of newspapers here and I’ve yet to encounter a single bloody thing happening. Look here” she showed Zelda the front page of the paper she was holding “this man’s grown a very large carrot. And that’s front page news. Zelda. Are they aware there’s a war on? There ARE things happening in the world and this town is going on as if there were NO things happening in the world.”  
“That’s the Greendale way of life, my love. If it isn’t a football game or a mine collapse it isn’t happening”  
“Amazing” Hilda mused while she continued to peruse the nothingness in mild horror. 

Zelda felt very torn. She wished they hadn’t come here. This place felt so stifling. Yet... when their home was destroyed it was the one place she could think of. It called to her. It was home. Something in this place felt so right, it resonated with her. She was sure that if she wasn’t careful she could accidentally pass a century in this place without noticing. But still, not everything was right. She knew the sense of dread and loss she couldn’t shake was about more than the war. The war felt big, imposing, an all encompassing threat. There was a nearly hidden edge of something else. Something that was meant for her. That small sense of...something, whatever it was, made her cling close to Hilda. She couldn’t be sure if it was protectiveness of Hilda or a need for comfort for herself. Maybe both. Probably both. 

•Greendale 2016• 

She had the dream again. That horrible recurring dream of walking through rubble. People crying, Zelda among them. People calling the names of loved ones, the names of pets. Calling for the dead. Zelda clinging close to someone she couldn’t see. She never did look at the person she was with in the dream, she couldn’t take her eyes off the ruins. She woke with a start. Safe in her pitch black bedroom with Hilda snoring softly in her bed. Before she knew what she was doing she had slid out of her bed and was tucking herself under Hilda’s covers, snuggling in close, feeling the sense of ennui and dread dissipating as she drifted quickly off to sleep, nestled close to Hilda’s side. 

When she woke again the sun was starting to rise. Hilda was holding her, stroking her arm and giving her a gentle kiss on the top of her head. Zelda felt so peaceful. She closed her eyes and slipped right back into sleep. 

The next time she woke it was full daylight and Hilda was gone. This wasn’t the first time. Every time Zelda had that dream she ended up in Hilda’s bed. Like a silly child. She hated her weakness. She hated that Hilda was gone. But she was thankful for it. It meant there would be no conversation, no need to explain herself. Thanks Satan for that. Because she wasn’t sure she could.


	4. Chapter 4

•Greendale 1991•

This had happened before. Zelda remembered with perfect clarity, the time she killed Hilda, eight years ago. It felt much more recent than that. These two isolated moments of clarity seemed to happen back to back. She stood in the lounge, staring, in shock. Hilda was dead again, on the floor with all the laundry she and Zelda had just been trying to organize, one of Edward’s ties around her throat. Zelda’s hands were still sore from having strangled her with it.

“Oh dear” Edward said from the doorway. Zelda looked up and stared at him then, like a deer in headlights. Did he know? Did he know that the spell lifted when Hilda died? What would he do to Zelda if he did? “She was supposed to cook for tomorrow’s dinner. We have guests coming.” Edward looked perturbed at most. Not at all the appropriate reaction for someone coming into a room to find one of his sisters has murdered the other “I suppose you’ll have to do it.” He shrugged and walked upstairs, whistling to himself.

Zelda didn’t have time for rage. She went to the desk, she had a much clearer head this time. She quickly wrote a letter to herself. She explained the whole horrid situation, or as much of it as she could remember. But would she believe it? Would the Zelda that she was under Edward’s spell ever even find it? She put it in the center of her first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. It was another clue for herself, a memento of their time in Paris, the life they’d had there, the people they’d known. Maybe it would help. As she tucked the book away on the shelf, hoping she’d decide to read it again sooner rather than later, she felt a wave of intense nostalgia. Satan, how she wished they’d never left. She turned to Hilda, lifeless, but this time, peaceful looking. Zelda knelt over her and bent to kiss her face. She didn’t know how quickly she needed to move, if the Cain pit would refuse to save her, or not be able to after a certain amount of time. But she had to take just one moment to look at Hilda and remember what it used to be like. She held her hand and whispered to her

“Do you remember, my love? Dancing in the street in Montmartre? Your 100th birthday. Josephine sang a song just for you. The stars were so bright that night, brighter than we’d ever seen them in Paris. And you shone like the sun.” Zelda started to cry and she left lipstick marks all over Hilda’s face. But time was getting on and there was a grave to dig. She wiped her eyes and steeled her demeanor. She became the heartless version of herself that she would need to be and she drug Hilda outside and began to dig.

•Greendale 1991•

It was awful. Just as awful as it had been the first time. Hilda lay panting and coughing and getting that hot strangled feeling in her throat right before vomiting up dirt. She was still partially buried. Legs interred, she slouched on the ground, staring at the house. She felt so much of so many emotions that she couldn’t even express them anymore. Hate. Rage. Sadness. Shame. Shame that comes from rejection by one you love dearly, and the shame of never being able to stop loving them even though you really would rather you could. She wiggled and pulled until she was all above ground. Then she lay there and looked up at the sky. The sun was setting and it was beautiful. At least this was lovely to come back to. It was lovely. Until the pale copper and the stark blue reminded her of Zelda. She felt like she missed Zelda. Not the horrible Zelda who lives in the house, some other Zelda, someone she felt like she used to know. But that was stupid. She’d known Zelda forever and she’d always been horrible. She wondered if maybe this was some sort of... what? Stockholm syndrome? Whatever it was called it made Hilda feel stupid. Stupid and sick and awful.

She brushed past Edward in the hallway. He looked astounded at her appearance. She ignored him, went into the hall bathroom, and shut the door behind her without a word. There wasn’t as much dirt stuck her this time. Last time Zelda killed her it had rained and she’d been caked in mud. The water ran black for ages. It was mercifully dry today. She looked in the mirror against her better judgment. Her face was covered in lipstick. Not her own smeared lipstick, red lipstick. Zelda’s lipstick. There were (faded and somewhat difficult to see under the smears of dirt) red kisses all over her face. And on her mouth. It took several minutes and several iterations of the stages of grief, but eventually Hilda turned away from her reflection and left the bathroom, trailing dirt.

She found Zelda in their room, putting away the laundry they’d been folding together before her death.

“There you are. I knew you’d be back before dark” Zelda drawled as she shut the closet “you’re a disaster. You should really clean yourself up, you’re leaving quite the mess” Hilda walked purposefully over to her sister and shoved her against the wall. She grabbed her face and made Zelda look into her eyes. Zelda looked shocked, scared even.

“Look. At. My face. Zelda” Hilda ordered through gritted teeth “what is _this_?” She waited for Zelda to answer, watched the older witch’s eyes take in the dirt and her expression and then finally, the kisses. Zelda looked confused more than anything, but also worried and guilty and confused anew. Hilda continued “I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what you want from me or why you can’t use your words like a grown woman, but next time, Zelda... Next time you kill me you’d better leave me in the ground. If this is what you’ve been killing me for, you should know right now you’ll never have it. The fact that you want it is not my problem. Do you hear me, Zelda Spellman?”

“Hilda, I don’t-“ Hilda clapped a hand over Zelda’s mouth and looked deep into her eyes

“If you finish that sentence I swear to Satan it will be you who goes in the ground this time. And not in the Cain pit.” Zelda accepted defeat this time and nodded. Hilda left her there and went back to the hall bathroom to have a quiet hot shower and a very cathartic cry.


	5. Chapter 5

•Greendale 2016• 

Zelda lay curled up in Hilda’s bed, hugging her pillow and breathing in her scent. Hilda always smelled like a memory Zelda couldn’t place. A very nice memory that made Zelda’s heart ache in a vague, dull way. The ache was everywhere today. She always felt a bit like this when she had that dream, but it had never been this bad before. The sun had been up for hours but Zelda couldn’t make herself move. Not even to her own bed. 

She thought about everything while she lay there. Well, everything as it pertained to Hilda. She always found herself acting out of turn with her better instincts. Whatever it occurred to her might be the worst thing to do in almost any situation with Hilda, that was what Zelda ultimately did. She felt out of control. Out of her own body, as if watching herself from a window in her own head. She reflected on every awful thing she’d done to Hilda, and how much of it she truly (Zelda saw in retrospect) didn’t deserve. She reflected on why she got so angry, why her decision making on matters of her sister was so out of step with her normal idea of what was rational. 

She couldn’t find an answer. ...Unless. She did always black out when she killed Hilda. And-She shut her eyes against the shame of the memory, the gut wrenching confusion sloshing around in her with the certainty of her own guilt. She thought of the kisses covering Hilda’s face the last time she’d died. When Zelda came to after burying Hilda the last time, she was in the house. In the bathroom facing her reflection she noticed, because she couldn’t not. She had frosty pink lipstick smeared unevenly on her lips (Hilda’s preferred shade in those days), and most of her own lipstick was worn off. So when Hilda threatened her against the wall, she knew she was guilty. She had wanted to explain herself, but... how? What was the explanation? It took time to allow herself to accept that she knew what it was. Or part of it. What it must be. The way her body had responded to the way Hilda touched her that day, the low sharp edge to her voice. How captivating she found a low neckline or flattering drape on Hilda. How in these moments, when she was most distressed her body clung to Hilda and her heart followed. 

The warmth she felt for Hilda was not sisterly. She wondered if that were why she could never content herself with their relationship. Was it what made her so angry? So violent? The thought soaked her in shame. She let herself cry. She cried and entertained fantasies about Hilda coming to kiss away the tears. Those were fine until they turned and Zelda could almost feel Hilda’s fingertips pushing aside the strap on her nightdress, as if they’d just been on her skin. She could so clearly remember the press of lips, of fingers. Heat. Wet. Zelda groaned in frustration, in anger at herself, at her lot in life, and in disgust with her own mind. Her anger propelled her out of bed and, for something to do, she went to run herself a scalding bath. The better to burn away the thoughts. 

•Greendale 2016•

Hilda was in a gloomy mood all day. She knew precisely why. She and Zelda had always been emotionally linked. Like twins. Except Zelda never felt Hilda’s feelings. But Hilda couldn’t stop feeling hers. Zelda was never one for a quiet emotion. Well perhaps she would seem so to the rest of the world, but not to the closest person to her, not when that person was an empath who cared for her deeply. 

There was no more business today. She’d finished up some lingering paperwork in the morning and was dusting the bookshelves. Then she felt it. A very familiar turn in the path of this particular set of Zelda’s emotions. Hilda leaned against the books, resting her face on their cool spines while the wave of longing and sadness took over her. She gently touched the books, vividly remembering something she’d never done. Thinking of Zelda under her lips, under her fingers, around her fingers-no. She wouldn’t have that. It wasn’t fair. Zelda didn’t get to treat her like a household pest and then fantasize about her in bed. 

Hilda was so angry she grabbed the book under her hand and intended to go upstairs and throw it at Zelda. It was well past time she got out of bed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, it’s angsty.

•Greendale 2016•

Hilda walked into their bedroom and whipped the book in her hand at Zelda, who was standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Zelda was too surprised to dodge it and it hit her square in the shoulder. 

“Hildegard! What is wrong with you?” She yelled while holding her shoulder. 

“You! You’re wrong with me! You’re always the bloody problem, Zelda! I barely dare think how happy my life could be if it weren’t for you!”

Zelda felt herself go red, she felt the tears coming to her eyes and did her utmost to stop them. She couldn’t. She managed to steady her voice enough to sound almost sincere when she said

“Then why don’t you leave?” 

Now Hilda was beginning to cry. 

“Because I” she hesitated “Because I love you. I love you so much.” Her voice was thick with tears and she was looking Zelda dead in the eye. They’d been dancing around this for decades. Zelda supposed it was finally time. She took a steadying breath and opened her mouth to confess, but she found she couldn’t look in Hilda’s eyes when she did. So she looked at the ground. 

“I know...” her voice came out quiet “I know that you know...” she trailed off. 

Hilda was quiet for a moment. Waiting. Contemplating. 

“You know that I know... what?”

Zelda winced as if Hilda were pushing on a bruise. She looked like she were desperately trying to make herself speak and coming up against a wall. 

“You know...” Hilda continued, moving closer “that I know... that you love me? Sure. In your own horrible way. I do know that” Hilda’s tone was even and straight “I know that you love me more than you say. You love me... not like a sister...” She was close now, standing a few inches from Zelda who still couldn’t look into her eyes “and I think I know that it’s why you kill me. And I should hate you for that-and rest assured-I do. I do hate you, Zelda. You are the great misery of my life and it’s because I love you. So. Bloody much. All I do is mope around this town-mope around this house, loving you. And I can’t figure out why. Because I shouldn’t. It makes me sick to my stomach to love someone who treats me like you do.” Hilda wasn’t done, but Zelda was already quietly weeping. She was still standing, shoulders beginning to slump, gaze still averted, making herself listen to Hilda’s every word. “The day that Sabrina doesn’t need me anymore is the day that I leave you. And it will be the happiest day of my life.” 

 

Hilda didn’t wait for her sister to compose herself, she had said what she had needed to say for the better part of a century, and it didn’t exactly feel good, but it felt a hell of a lot better than saying nothing. 

—-

Neither of them gave any thought to the other people in the house, to the possibility that they could be listening. So Sabrina went unnoticed around the corner. Hilda’s words shook her to her core. She felt guilty for having excused so much of Zelda’s bad behavior. For not having noticed it. Of course it was terrible that Zelda murdered Hilda every once in a while, terrible the way she dismissed and insulted her, and it was even more terrible that it seemed normal. She felt guiltier still that the reason she’d been heading to their room in the first place- her book report-was still at the forefront of her mind. She wanted to write it on Gertrude Stein, and she knew there was a copy of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas on the shelf yesterday that wasn’t there today. 

 

Sabrina peeked into her aunts’ room and found it empty. She could hear Zelda in the bathroom. Still crying. She felt so torn between comforting her and letting her feel the sting of her own actions. She really was too hard on Hilda. Sabrina was proud of her younger aunt for finally standing up for herself. Sabrina spotted a book on the floor, the same size and shape as the one she needed. She tiptoed over and picked it up. It was the Gertrude Stein. At least she had the book she needed. She took it to her room and tried to console herself with the idea that maybe once she started reading it she could get some further insight from her aunties and Ambrose. Maybe that conversation could even lift the mood in the house. They’d all lived in Paris in the 20s although apparently none of them were speaking then...or...weren’t they? The details had always been hazy. Each one of the rare times it had come up the subject always changed quickly due to ringing phones or knocks on doors. Maybe she could get some solid information out of them though, if it were for school.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be more cheerful, I promise.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Folks! It’s been so long! Life has been nuts, but I hope to be able to find more time for this story. Thank you for being so patient and so supportive. I love you all and I hope you enjoy!  
> This chapter is dedicated to ladyvivien for being the best accidental beta :*

•Paris 1926•

It was just past the witching hour and the Seine was dark and placid. The moon on the river was dazzling, but not as dazzling as the moon on Hilda’s skin. She had worn the dress Zelda had bought her (one of many birthday presents). It was barely a dress at all, really. All straps and lattice work up the back. Silk and a few beads on the front. Barely acceptable in public, had they been going anywhere respectable. But when the most reputable establishment on the agenda is the Folies Bergère almost anything will do as long as it’s in fashion. And a beautiful woman in a beautifully made, barely there dress was always in fashion. 

 

A riverbank and Hilda’s bare skin. Zelda really hadn’t planned it this way. Making love next to a river was supposed to be an anniversary treat. But all the same Zelda was pulling Hilda behind a tree, pressing her to the stone wall and sliding the dress’ straps down her shoulders.

“Zelda” Hilda moaned, half in pleasure, half in protest to public nudity.

“Hilda” Zelda answered dismissively, pressing close and sliding one hand under Hilda’s skirt as a compromise for leaving her straps alone.

“Someone will see”

“Lucky them” 

 

Hilda was going to protest some more but Zelda’s mouth was more enticing. Zelda kissed deeply and hungrily. Hilda kissed sweetly and playfully. 

“Someone’s been enjoying her birthday” Zelda hissed sweetly in her wife’s ear as her hand discovered the patch of wet heat between stockinged thighs. She slid a finger inside of Hilda. “You’re running like the river, my sweet. Tell me, is it for me, or the show girls?” Zelda teased.

“Always for you” Hilda clung tightly to Zelda and buried her face in Zelda’s long alabaster neck “no show girl could fuck me the way you do”

“Is that the testimony of someone who’s tried?”

Zelda kept teasing as she pressed in another finger and fucked her wife just the way she liked “are you sure you’re all mine? Every eye in the room was on you tonight. You could’ve had them all”

“Don’t want them” Hilda gasped. She was already bucking against Zelda’s hand. Already so close.

“Not a one? None of those rich women who couldn’t stop staring at you? None of their husbands? Not one single cancan dancer?”

“No one” Hilda scratched at Zelda’s back and her breaths came ragged “I’m yours, Zelda. And you’re mine. Mine. All mine” she panted the words as she shuddered and came. 

 

Hilda cuddled into Zelda’s chest. Zelda held her and nuzzled her hair. 

“This has been the best birthday. I love you, Zelda Spellman” 

 

•Greendale 2016 •

Yelling. More yelling. Why was there always yelling? Sabrina was only two chapters into her book when she couldn’t block the noise out anymore. She huffed and tucked the book under her arm. If the yelling wasn’t going to stop she was going to go downstairs and contribute to it. After this afternoon she expected better from her aunts. She’d had the audacity to hope that maybe one of them learned a lesson. But as she approached the kitchen it became increasingly clear that wasn’t happening. 

 

“Then why don’t you kill me again, you selfish bitch!”

“Don’t tempt me Hilda, you have no idea how close I am!”

“Only do me a favor this time and bury me somewhere else! I am so sick of you that I would rather just die. So please stop being such a damn coward and kill me properly so I can finally be free of you” 

 

And then the sounds of a struggle, both aunts grunting and growling with the effort of the fight-then a sickening dull sound and a release of breath. Sabrina was frozen in the hall. She’d heard of the times before, Ambrose told her about Zelda killing Hilda and burying her in the Cain pit to bring her back to life. She tried not to panic purely on that basis. She just never thought it would happen again, never really believed it in the first place. Like stories about the boogeyman or other imaginary terrible things people said to scare children. Only, like so many of those things, this was true too. Only this wasn’t a demon or a ghost, this was her own family.

 

“No. Oh no no no no I’m sorry. No, I didn’t mean to, Zelda, I’m sorry. What can I do” It was Hilda’s voice. She was sounding increasingly panicked with every syllable. Sabrina could hear her sniffling. She couldn’t move. She was frozen to the spot. In all their dealing with death she’d never had it come so close to her. She couldn’t make her body start. She heard quick footsteps and Ambrose’s voice above her 

“Aunties!” He rushes down the stairs and brushed past Sabrina. 

 

She heard him skid to a stop in the kitchen 

“Oh... Satan”

“Ambrose” Hilda sniffled “help” her voice sounded so different from any way Sabrina had ever heard it before. She sounded like a different person. 

 

-/-/-/-

 

The knife had gone in just under Zelda’s Ribs. It had been a split second impulse, pushing the knife instead of pulling it. And Zelda lunged. At just the wrong time. It all happened so fast and now she was falling. Incredibly slowly. As if to tease Hilda with the idea of time to undo her mistake. Zelda clutched at her sister’s cardigan and looked into her eyes as the older woman’s knees slowly gave out and she pulled them both to the ground. Because wasn’t Hilda wasn’t letting go. But she wasn’t exactly there anymore. 

 

She had a million annoying thoughts flying into her head, stealing her attention from the dire scene she was currently in. 

 

Her mind was flooding with half remembered faces. A feeling like she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten so much or believed the world to be so small. She wanted to banish the thoughts and deal with this situation. She needed to act, she needed to remember what to do, but there was no room for it. The thought she needed kept getting bumped out of the way by a new memory, almost like the memories were being poured in and washing away the present. 

 

Only Ambrose’s yelling and his sudden presence in the room pulled her back above the surface, back to the moment in which Zelda was dying in her arms and it was her fault. She still couldn’t think. Still didn’t know what to do. She could only manage the one word “Help”.

 

Ambrose. That sweet sweet boy. He took in the situation, lunged forward and kissed Hilda on the forehead and told her “Good for you, Auntie” and sprinted back out of the room. Hilda heard voices, Ambrose and Sabrina. Sabrina panicked and Ambrose rushed. 

“Help me, cuz”

“Help? H-“

“Dig”

There was the sound of shovels being pulled out of the utility cupboard and something dropping to the floor, then the two of them running outside. 

 

And Hilda sat. She sat and held Zelda in almost a trance as so much information flooded her brain that she could barely open her eyes because taking in anymore would be painful. 

 

There was an entire other childhood. Parents. Different parents. A sister who wasn’t Zelda. No brothers at all. A mother who cried when Hilda moved south and struck out on her own. A love affair with a pretty redhead that turned into a life together. All too familiar stupid spats over nothing. The painting Hilda had always hated, but Zelda loved in the hallway of their London flat. The rug Zelda thought was tacky, but reminded Hilda of a garden in their Paris flat. And memeories that still felt forbidden, and new, and all together too good to be true. Rug burns on Zelda’s knees and Hilda’s ass from that rug in Paris, so many kisses they were second nature, Zelda’s hand up her skirt and kind words in her ear on the river under the Eiffel Tower. 

 

Back in the present Zelda touched Hilda’s cheek and it pulled her back into the moment. 

“Zelda” she tried to put everything in two syllables, the love, the apology, the shock, the new understanding.

“I know” Zelda rasped “Alice. The book. It’s on the shelf. Its all there. Edward.” 

“What? Zelda that doesn’t make any sense”

But she was fading too fast. Her eyes were closing. 

“No, don’t you dare. Zelda Spellman, you wake up and you talk to me”

But it was too late. She was gone. Hilda knew it was stupid to cry. She knew Zelda would be back in a matter of minutes, but somehow it all felt more urgent than that.

 

Hilda set the body of the woman who was not her sister gently down on the kitchen floor. She sniffled and wiped her eyes and stood. 

“Right” she took a deep breath and began walking to the lounge with definite purpose and vague direction. ‘Alice’ that could be a couple of things. She’d have to check them all. Alice in wonderland? Alice Riley? Her foot collided with something and she accidentally kicked it across the floor. It was a book. It slid and hit the wall at the opposite end of the hallway with a loud thud. The impact knocked loose a piece of paper that had been tucked into the middle of it. 

 

Hilda picked it up. “The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Well. Let’s hope it’s that easy” she pulled out the piece of paper and stood in disbelief, and horror, and rage, and sadness, and overwhelming love as she read it. 

 

She struggled to make some of it out. It was in Zelda’s messiest handwriting. It was a rushed and desperate letter to anyone. It had just a few moments of lucidity, but even then it made complete sense to Hilda.

 

Hilda sprung into action and went around the kitchen and the greenhouse collecting books and ingredients and laying them out on the table. She called her familiars to the table and held up the book she had open to a protection sigil. “Can you do this? On every door and window in the house. We need to be quick. It’s gonna take all of us working as fast as we can to keep the spell from taking hold again” 

They all agreed and skittered off to all corners of the house. Hilda got a bottle of ink from the writing desk and knelt over Zelda. 

“I’m so sorry, love. This isn’t the most dignified thing to have done with your corpse” she apologized as she undid Zelda’s blouse “but if we’re being honest. There’s much worse out there. And the upside it is it will look quite striking when you resurrect.” She told her as she drew the protection sigil on her chest. “It’s actually recommended that the sigil be carved into the flesh. But I’m not sure I could stomach it just now, and it’ll only get healed by the pit so we’ll just make do and hope for the best shall we” 

She finished the sigil. 

“And I’m very sorry about this” she closed her eyes and yanked the knife out of Zelda’s gut “but if we’re being completely honest. You had it coming.” Hilda’s eyes suddenly welled up with tears “don’t make me regret it anymore than I do, alright. You... you’ve got to come back. You have to. You haven’t got any say in the matter so it’s no use arguing. You will.”

Hilda closed up Zelda’s shirt when the ink dried and she went back to mixing ingredients and marking incantations for Sabrina and Ambrose to read in case her protections weren’t strong enough and she went under the spell again. 


	8. Chapter 8

•Greendale 2016•

“Sabrina, it will be fine. She will be fine, trust me-trust us”

Ambrose gestured between himself and Aunt Hilda. Hilda’s back was turned and she was memorizing an incantation. If everything was definitely going to be fine, then what was the urgent, scary air in the house? Why did Ambrose and Aunt Hilda seem so unsure? Sabrina helped Ambrose lift Zelda’s body so he could carry her over his shoulder. The way she hung over him was the worst part. She was so... limp. So... dead. It was hard to reconcile all of the conflicting information she was getting. Maybe she was only able to function at all because it was all too much to take in.

She helped Ambrose lower Zelda into the Cain pit as gently as possible and start covering her with earth.

—

Ambrose and Sabrina came back in the house find Hilda taking a gulp of Zelda’s bourbon and wincing as it went down.

“How did it go?” She rasped, throat still burning from the booze.

“She’s buried. Soil is loose enough. She should be able to dig out relatively easily. It was nice of you to provide gardening gloves. If memory serves, she hasn’t earned them” Ambrose joked. Hilda loved him for being able to. She was still far too worried. “Auntie, she will be fine.” He said to Hilda, taking the glass from her and drinking the rest of its contents. He set down the glass and finally asked Hilda “What the hell are we in?”

Hilda didn’t want to say. She was able to now that there was no spell replacing her thoughts anymore. She just didn’t know how to say it in front of Sabrina. How do you tell a little girl you love that her dead father, whom she believes to be the Satanic equivalent of a saint, was actually just an evil bastard? There is no good way.

 

•Greendale 1941•

“Oh Edward, please” Zelda scoffed.

Hilda was listening outside the office door. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t know how Zelda could have believed so strongly in Edward’s good intentions when went around acting the way he did. Hilda was having more trouble hearing what Edward was saying, but she could hear him affecting his smug calm he always used when he was making a really bad point. Then she heard Zelda say

“That’s mortal, Christian rhetoric, Edward-and not even the good kind!”

Hilda pressed her ear to the door, but she still couldn’t make out what Zelda’s brother was saying.

“So you don’t even care if I have a child, you simply want me attached a man for the sake of it. You and that pomade soaked vampire need to spend some time away from this town and talk to anyone other than yourselves for five minutes! Maybe get a little perspective- just a spoonful of reality- you arrogant, flaming shit!”

Zelda threw open the door. Hilda tried to straighten up in as dignified a manner as she could, but Zelda took her by the arm and pulled her along as she stomped up the stairs. As soon as they were in their room Zelda locked the door and pulled the suitcases from under the bed.

“Zelds, what are you doing?”

“We, Hilda. We are leaving. Here”

Zelda handed her her case, the one she’d had to buy to hold what new clothes she was able to get before they’d made the trip to America.

“Oh thank Lilith, I hate this place”

“I know” Zelda puffed “I’m sorry we came here. Let’s go some place with a beach.”

Hilda smiled at that. “Oh yes please”.

 

•Greendale 2016•

“No time just now, I’m afraid” she told Ambrose in answer to his question “let’s get these spells just right so your aunt and I can tell you when she gets back.”

She handed over a book each to her niece and nephew. They gathered the herbs for their individual spells and took their spots outside, creating a triangle around the house, including the Cain pit in it.

Hilda stood closest to the pit. Near the twelfth minute they began their incantations. They called out the words and the wind kicked up around the house. The trees around the property remained perfectly still, but the air around the Spellman family swirled and howled and three of them yelled into the night, protecting their home, and protecting each other. The wind shook the house and Hilda could see Sabrina ignoring it with steely intent. She was so slight, the wind nearly knocked her over, but still she spoke the words- yelled them with conviction. The wind blew harder and harder until an almighty crack sounded through the night and everything stopped.

The ground at Hilda’s feet moved. She got to her knees and with the greatest, and the most delicate hope she called toward the dirt.

“Zelda, Zelda I’m up here. Come on, darling, just break ground and I can help you” She wanted to reach into the ground and pull Zelda out. But instinct told her that wasn’t allowed. What you buried in the Cain pit, you must leave. The rest is up to the buried.

One gloved hand emerged, grasping, from the earth. Hilda grabbed the hand and pulled with all her strength. Then another hand grabbed her and soon a beautiful, dirt strewn face was visible and gasping for breath. Zelda, with Hilda’s help, pulled herself free. Hilda stroked Zelda’s back while Zelda vomited grave dirt for a minute or so. As soon as she could speak, Zelda asked

“Did it work?” She didn’t look up, like she was afraid of the answer.

“Well seeing as you know to ask, I’d put my money on yes.”

Zelda laughed weakly and pulled the gloves off her hands. She wiped her face with one hand and took Hilda’s hand in the other. When She finally looked up, Ambrose and Sabrina had reached them. Sabrina nearly threw herself on Zelda in a tearful hug. She didn’t say anything, just sobbed a couple of times and held on tight.

“I know, darling. It’s a horrible fright. But I’m back. And believe you me, I earned what I got” Zelda soothed her, and stroked her hair.

Zelda insisted on bathing and dressing alone, and Hilda understood. Even before the spell had been broken, coming back from the dead was harsh on the nerves.

The others busied themselves with tidying, cleaning up blood and putting away herbs. And the door. The loud crack they’d heard outside seemed to have been the front door splitting down the middle. Hilda was wary of even temporarily mending it if it had been involved in Edward’s spell, so Ambrose simply propped it up against the frame and circled the house with protections against intruders as well as the elements. Sabrina made a pot of tea and put out the leftovers from last night’s lasagna (Ambrose has told her Hilda was always ravenous when she came back from the dead).

When Zelda descended the stairs Hilda stopped in her tracks and watched her. It was like she hadn’t seen her in decades. She knew they saw each other every day, but... not really. Not as themselves. They’d been trapped in Edward’s sick puppet show for more than a decade after his death, for nearly a century. Zelda didn’t take her eyes off Hilda the whole time. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she pulled Hilda in by the shoulders and kissed her. Hilda wrapped her arms around Zelda’s waist, and kissed her, and began to cry.

“I missed you”Hilda sobbed

“Not as often as I missed you”

They didn’t even separate to talk. As one of them spoke the other kept kissing.

Ambrose pulled a horrified Sabrina into the kitchen and began to explain as much as he knew. The Aunties were clearly not going to be any kind of help for a while, and Sabrina was at risk of serious mental scarring.

—

“So" Ambrose began "Auntie Hilda isn’t actually our Auntie, as it happens... well, I mean she is, but... by marriage”

“Ambrose... what?”

Sabrina was rightly confused. The truth of all of their lives was directly contradictory to everything she’d grown up with. Unlike the rest of them, she was born into this curse. “It’s hard to explain. I’m not sure any of us has the whole story. When they’ve said their hellos, I’m sure they’ll have more than I do-“ he was interrupted by the sounds of hurried footsteps going up the stairs. “Just as insufferable as I remember” he said fondly, half to himself.

“Ambrose, what are they doing?” Sabrina asked hesitantly.

“You know what they’re doing, cuz.”

“Ambrose. No, Ambrose. Ew. They’re not.”

“Sabrina. Ew. Yes. Welcome to a whole new world of blocking out our aunties. It’s even worse than the last one” he put his arm around her shoulders and guided her into the parlor. He put on a Rolling Stones album (the loudest record on offer outside of his room) and turned it up. Once he was sure it was loud enough to block out any noises from the rest of the house he proceeded to explain that he’d never had an Aunt Hilda, that there were only two Spellman siblings in Greendale, and that suddenly, one day, there were three. He explained that Edward had been a well-intentioned Satanic scholar, but had fallen in with a sketchy crowd, including Faustus Blackwood. That his ideas became more heavily influenced by his radical cohorts, and gradually he and Ambrose lost touch as they agreed on fewer and fewer points. And then when Edward came to his rescue and saved him from execution, suddenly the woman he knew as Zelda’s wife, he now believed was her sister. “It’s such a strange feeling. Now that my head is clear I remember both lives so clearly.”

“So…” Sabrina pointed vaguely upward “that’s…fine?”

“To be fair, cuz, if they were sisters, it would still, by the church’s laws, be fine”

Sabrina grimaced and shook her head.”No. Just… one thing at a time, Ambrose.”

“Fair enough” he laughed “I wasn’t kidding though. They are going to be insufferable. You should’ve seen them eighty years ago. Before all this dismal sister business, they were _the_ witch socialite couple. It was impossible to not be happy that two people were so in love. But it was also impossible not to be a little bit sickened by it.” He hesitated before the next bit. “What I’m about to say may be…”he searched for a word and settled on “difficult… to hear. Satan knows it’s hard to say. You were born into one situation, and it's... not real. The fictitious life this curse has made us lead is the only life you know. A lot of what have been staples of our lives up to now are not, strictly speaking, real.”

“One of those things being what kind of person my father was.” Sabrina said “If he could do that to Hilda and Zelda… But did he know? How miserable it would make them? It might’ve been an accident-“

“If it were” Ambrose cut her off. He couldn’t bear to watch her build her own hopes back up when he knew he had to crush them “then he had nearly seventy years to undo it, or to even fix it in some way… I lived with them, Sabrina, all three of them. He knew.” What Ambrose didn’t say was _‘He enjoyed it. Making them miserable was half the fun.’_ He could see the wheels turning in Sabrina’s head as she tried to make sense of all of it. Finally she nodded to herself and said

"It can’t hurt to have more love in the house”

“That’s the spirit" Ambrose laughed "You and I should probably sleep down here though… with the TV on. Movie marathon?”

Sabrina perked right up “Obviously. I’ll get the popcorn. I don’t think I can be the one who goes upstairs for blankets right now.”

“No indeed. That particular short straw is mine” Ambrose sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented! I really appreciate the feedback. I hope you like the new chapter. (Seriously, Thank You!)


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